The Barbary

Welcome to The Barbary

The Barbary is situated in the iconic Neal’s Yard in Covent Garden. The restaurant takes inspiration from the Barbary Coast, Identified by 16th century Europeans as the area settled by the Berbers in the Atlas Mountains (Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Libya), the Barbary Coast was infamous for pirates and (until the beginning of the 20th century) the Barbary Lion. It tells a story of trade, travel and culture – people voyaging along the coast, collecting and sharing ingredients and recipes, gathering influences from areas visited and thus enriching their own culture and heritage.

The Barbary menu reflects the countries from the Atlantic Coast through to the Mediterranean Sea leading to Israel. All these countries have rich culinary traditions, exotic products, flavoursome spices and cooking techniques passed down through generations. This culinary heritage is about seasonality – food available at that moment from that piece of land, cooked in the most pure way, with fire, whether it was grilling on coals or baking in ancient clay ovens in the middle of the village. That is the basis of the Barbary: some history, a little bit of romance and a Kitchen Bar.

The Barbary is now in its third year, and in September we were truly honoured to be announced as Time Out’s number one restaurant in London for the second year running.

Reservations at The Barbary

We are taking online bookings at the times of 12noon Monday to Sunday, and 5pm Monday to Friday, for parties of up to 4 guests.

At all other times, The Barbary is walk-in only.

To make a reservation, please use the online booking system, as we do not respond to reservation enquiries via email.

As we are a small and busy restaurant, we only sit complete parties. If you are running late, we can hold your seats for a maximum of 15 minutes.

Good to Know

Apart from at 12noon and 5pm, The Barbary is walk in only, no reservations.

To be fair to everyone, we only seat complete parties.

All menu prices include hospitality, no additional service charge.

We can accommodate vegetarian, vegan, dairy and gluten free requirements.

Due to the intimate size and nature of the stool seating, regrettably the restaurant is unsuitable for infants or children under 8 years old.

The Barbary is best for parties of one to four guests. For larger parties there may be a much longer wait as it can take far more time for seats next to each other to become available and we strongly recommend you arrive as we open in this instance.

It is hard to give an average wait time but at lunch times there is rarely a very long queue and you can often be seated almost straight away. At dinner time you might wait from thirty minutes to more than an hour, but it can also be quicker. Even if it is busy, it is a pleasant wait and part of the experience, so do come to see us!

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